My Story
I tried to buy a boat with Selymar Yachts. And I experienced a really malicious venture. But right from the beginning:
In internet I found a nice yacht offered by Selymar Yachts.
I visited the boat in real life, had a first look on it and it seemed fine to me.
All seemed honest and friendly.
The internet page of Selymar Yachts described the process of buying a boat quite good and also the process looked good to me:
The buyer pays a fee for reservating the yacht, which is taken for the first payment of the contract between seller and buyer.
After signing this contract, the buyer is allowed to send a surveyor and do a test sailing.
If there are any findings, the buyer can retreat from the reservation, so at least I was told by Selymar Yachts - Mrs. B.
I asked Selymar (Mrs. B.) to send me the contract - or a draft of contract (because they didn't have the complete information) - and they did so.
The contract also looked reasonable to me, for the buyer and for the sellers side.
So I reservated the yacht with Selymar and sent 9800 Euros.
The next day, I got a mail from Selymar, that the seller want to have a first amount of money within two weeks!
I didn't hire a surveyor nor did I test-sail it yet, not even the contract was signed!
From now on, I really was suspicious and I wanted them to send me a copy of the ships papers in advance.
Selymar told me, that they don't have a copy of the ships papers.
And the seller told me, that the papers are not accecssible now, "because they are on the boat".
One week later - after many phone calls and emails -
I received a new version of contract, completely different from the first draft of contract, even the building year had changed.
Of course I wouldn't sign that, really important parts of the contract have changed.
One of the parts is the wording from 'registered owner' to just 'owner'.
Also a part, which prevents you from paying debts or liens of the old owner, has been stripped off completely.
Many mails and phone calls later Mrs. S. T. - as I understood, she is the owner of Selymar - has taken over.
She told me, that now the contract is settled and the seller agreed to sign my version of contract
and we all should meet, that I can check the ships papers in original.
On the meeting it turned out, that the seller still didn't want to sign my version of contract (what a fould play of Selymar),
and it's obvious why the seller didn't want to sign it:
For me it's fraud: The only official paper he showed us,
was the austrian registration with the name of a leasing company on it!!!
He couldn't show a Builders Certificate, nor CE Certification, the only official document was the austrian registriation to a leasing company.
That clearly stated to me: The boat is registered and owned by a leasing company!
Now it was completely clear to me - also to my friends, which accompanied me - that this person is only the possessor of the yacht, who leased the yacht.
He is not the registered owner and he had no papers, who entitled him to sell this yacht. But the broker Selymar Yacht - Mrs. S.T. - didn't care.
So of course I didn't want to buy a yacht from a private person, where the registered owner is a leasing company.
Hence I told Selymar Yachts (Mrs. S.T.) to return my reservation fee, because I'm not going to buy the boat of this seller, who is only the possessor.
Selymar never returned the 9800 Euros.
So actually for me, it's fraud.